Mrs. Hillbilly Mom Has The Nose Of A Bloodhound

My students are so considerate.

Just after lunch, one asked me if I had manure in my room. Well, no. As if I could stash such a treat in there without people knowing. The canary started singing that I DID TOO have manure in my room. Because Boot Boy walks through it every morning, and then scrapes it off at one of my desks first hour. Such conspiracists they are! Turning mud into manure.

Canary commanded me to command Boot Boy to get a broom and clean it up. Like it was her business. Like I wanted to hunt him down and invite such a spectacle into my classroom to distract my students from their lesson on groundwater. She has not, perhaps, heard of this newfangled concept called a custodian. Does not realize that we don't make students do the manual labor for free? Okay. They DO stack the chairs after lunch out of the way for a good floor-mopping. But I believe those boys are paid in diet soda.

No fewer than two other canaries sang that sad song later in the afternoon. I smelled a rat. Not manure. Either three canaries were out to get an alleged poop-tracker, or a rat was running his mouth about soiling my classroom for hall cred.

Yes, these kids are SO concerned about the cleanliness of my classroom. The same kids who leave granola bar wrappers, pieces of styrofoam cup, gum packages, used tissues, handed-back work with their name on it, unstarted-work with their name on it, broken mechanical pencils, bobby pins, used band-aids, and errant shiny colored candies upon my floor are worried about three flakes of mud.

I also smell a teenage romance gone bad.

No More Mrs. Nice Guy

I am feeling quite cantankerous today. Angry, even. Like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli. Perhaps it's simply full moon fever. Something has gotten into me. But rather than let my hair-trigger temper fire off a spiteful spate of vitriol, I shall use this space to mourn the loss of innocence.

The Pony started it. As we were leaving Newmentia, we spied a friend of his walking home across the parking lot, down the gravel trail that the city fathers poured after one young daredevil was smited by an SUV mirror in a game of chicken on the edge of the roadway early one sundrenched morning. I would have used the word smitten, but that would sound like he was in love with the mirror, not beaten black-and-blue by it. Allegedly.

Accounts of the original incident vary. The smiter never even knew she smit him. And the smitee declared that the poor woman veered thirty feet off the road to hit him while he walked along a copse of trees. Poppycock! Many a morning, I saw him walking on the road-edge, refusing to yield to oncoming traffic, drivers squinting into the just-risen sun. Let's just say that no charges were filed in the incident, the smitee wore an arm sling for one day, and after he enrolled elsewhere the trail magically appeared.

The Pony's friend is a nice young fellow. But one who would probably rather ride than walk in the thirty-four-degree chill. In a simpler world, I would have called to him and offered a ride. The Pony and I were driving his direction. We could have dropped him off a mile or so away, in town. But that simple gesture is not possible in this day and age. I have no chauffeurs license. I could be subject to a lawsuit in an accident. I could be accused of hinky wrong-doing if some agenda-ed person saw Friend climb into my T-Hoe.

Welcome to present-day Hillmomba. Where Mrs. Hillbilly Mom cannot be Mrs. Nice Guy.

Mrs. HM Needs A Flapper Necklace Made Of Garlic

I am about 38 winks shy of feeling rested.

The students are trying their best to share every ailment known to the common man. The nerve of them! They dare to walk down the hall while coughing. To hand in a paper that has not been run through a UV light chamber. To borrow the one pencil that I loan. To turn their head in my direction as I walk by. To lean on my desk, touching papers that I need to touch. To lean over my shoulder in order to see their grade on the monitor.

I am being proactive. I try to take in a big breath when I see a student headed for my desk. To let it out slowly, so as to achieve negative air flow from their breath. I refuse to raise my hands above my shoulders until I have doused them with Germ-X.  No nose-rubbing, eye scratching, lip touching, movements for me. I have already been sick this school year. I remain forever vigilant.

The Pony has a sore throat. His third one since mid-October.

I am thinking of sending him abroad.

Don't Let Him Carry The Nuclear Football

From the man who lost a donut under a chair at St. Louis Children's Hospital, and the man who lost a banana peel in a La-Z-Boy recliner, and the man who lost his partial plate in a mouse-hole until his Christmas Eve prime rib workplace dinner...I bring you:

The Man Who Lost His Medication On The Bathroom Floor

Seriously. What is he doing in there? Three times in the last month, I have found one of Farmer H's pills on the bathroom floor. Don't think I'm some Sherlock-Holmes-hatted, magnifying-glass-wielding gumshoe. I discover them by stepping on them with my bare feet. Usually the heel area. It is not pleasant.

The pill in question is some kind of gel-cap. It's a bit bigger than a Tic-Tac. Clear to light amber in color. See-through. Gooshy. I am shocked that my feet do not pop this pill. Not that they are drug-seeking feet. I mean pop as in explode. Not that my feet are so bony that a sharp point could do damage. They are wide, flat, spread-out feet. Like you see on people who live in the wild and don't wear shoes. I suppose the fact that my soles envelop the pill speaks for the thick cushion of fat in the heel bursa area. That I even feel it under my foot is, perhaps, the miracle. Thank the Gummi Mary, nobody is slipping a pea under my mattress.

Does Farmer H make a game of drug-taking? Toss each pill in the air like a puffy popcorn kernel, to catch it in his mouth, high-five worthy, to impress himself in the mirror? Does he have a hole in his chin? Take so many pills that losing one goes unnoticed? Shove them in his mouth by the handful? Does he even know when he drops one? Does he replace it in his pill-swallowing line-up, or go without? I questioned him after the first two drug discoveries. He said it was just a vitamin of some kind. A vitamin prescribed by his doctor, and paid for each month at the pharmacy. I believe Farmer H is taking this acceptable-loss attitude a bit too far. When I tell him of my discovery, and place it on the counter by the sink, he tells me to throw it away.

I fear that I might have to start wrapping Farmer H in a towel so he can't flail at me with his arms, clamp his nose shut, stuff the pill in his mouth, put my hand over his lips, and stroke his throat until he swallows. I'll let you know how that goes. Just as soon as I grow a third hand.

Letting The Pony Express

The Pony has grown a bit contrary and argumentative in his teenage years. I don't know where he gets it. I'm pretty sure from his father, but to pose that hypothesis would bring on a quarrel.

This morning we battled over him wearing his dark blue Adidas slides with the white stripes in The Devil's Playground. I of the opinion that it is November twenty-freaking-fourth, and slides are not worn with Carhartt-colored carpenter pants in public. The Pony of the opinion that since I let him wear his slides before, it was fine now. Never mind that before was in the summer, with shorts. Yesterday we had it out over whether he had to wear ankle socks with his pants and slides, even though he was remaining in T-Hoe while I went in Save A Lot. My argument being that with a temperature of forty-one degrees, and twenty mile-per-hour winds, socks were necessary. Which was actually a continuation of the disagreement over why he could not wear shorts instead of pants.

Today on the way to town, I pointed out a frozen rack of deer ribs on the right, on the banks of the creek we had just crossed via low-water bridge. I like to act as tour guide. Spout little-known facts. Hey! I've done it since my kids were captives in rear-facing infant car seats. And they're both pretty accomplished in the halls of academia, so I will take full credit for expanding their little minds as I saw fit. You never know what they're going to absorb.

Let the record show that The Pony refuses to ride in the shotgun seat. He sits behind me. No amount of coaxing or cajoling can get him to move up front. So I never know if he's responding to me or doing his own thing.

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"There's a rack of frozen deer ribs."

"I KNOW!"

"Well, excuse me. I was just pointing it out. They were there yesterday morning, with a dog gnawing on them."

"Uh...I WAS THERE!"

"Yeah, but I never know if you're listening to me."

"I always listen."
 
"That's a dirty lie. I'm going to come back there an set your pants ablaze. Liar, liar."

"I would let them burn. Until they were shorts-length, and then I would put them out."

"Very funny. You DO NOT always listen. Sometimes you have your head in a book. Sometimes you have your head in your laptop."

"Well, I didn't yesterday. You should know that. You would have heard my fingers clicking on the keys."

"I don't know what kind of superhuman hearing you think I have."

"You can hear slightest murmur of discontent in your classroom."

"I'm trained for that. I can always hear discontent."

"Like a drill sergeant."

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I WILL take credit for The Pony's sense of humor.

To Change His Spots, A Leopard Must First Have The Desire To Change His Spots

He's baaaack. That potty-mouthed leopard who creeps around my 44 oz. Diet Coke store, waiting to pounce. I had been Diet-Coking it up, happily shed of him, for some weeks now. Our schedules don't mesh. The predator had to make do with other prey. Until last evening.

There it was, my 44 oz. Diet Coke store, an oasis along the savanna of Thanskgiving. The lights glowed at dusk. Exotic and domestic cars, trucks, and motorcycles crouched by the gas pumps to sip, headlights wide open, wary of waiting watchers who would slink out of the shadows and overwhelm. Inside, blocking access to my own personal oasis, the soda bar, was Potmo, the potty-mouthed leopard who just might share a few genes with the howler monkey family.

As usual, Potmo launched into his monologue as soon as he spied me over his shoulder. Under the guise of drawing a 44 oz. draught for himself while talking shop with a co-worker, he once again offended. Killed any good will I might have shown in regards to our past parting acquaintance.

"Yeah, so this deal with Loretta is f*cking crap. I had her Monday night, and Lenny had her Saturday night. It's a crock of sh*t."

I have no idea who Loretta is, but I suspect she's one of the older ladies who tolerates no nonsense from Potmo. Thus his outrage. And by had her, I imagine he's talking about working a shift with her, not about knowing her in the Biblical sense. Lenny is the one who gives me the deep discounts on my soothing carbonated elixir. He's a stand-up guy, aside from defrauding the business by proffering me free soda. I can't imagine his issues with Loretta. He seems to get along with all co-workers every time I'm in there.

Help me reposition this thorn in my side. It's not feasible to remove it. The cost would be too great. I can live with it. But that doesn't mean I will like it. In fact, I might need to alter my activities until that thorn works its way loose. Bend a bit. Avoid actions that might aggravate my condition.

As I have mentioned before, Potmo is a former student five times removed. That's about how many years he's been gone from the nicely-waxed halls of Newmentia. He was that kid who would raise his hand and wait to be called on, then ask an off-topic, polarizing question to get the class off track. He was the kid who would bring up evolution in civics class, or abortion in English. Smart enough not to break the rules and draw a disciplinary referral. A chip-shouldered young man without a circle of friends to encourage his behavior. One to start a fiery discussion, then crawl under a cool fern and watch, amused, while sketching death-heads and swords on his art pad. We always thought he would go into the tattoo business. He was quite talented in that style.

Now he's a convenience store clerk. Who loudly spouts profanity every time our paths cross. What about the people who bring their children in there while they buy cases of beer and rolling papers? Kids don't need to be exposed to that kind of language!

I would find a way to complain to management, except that Potmo and I share a past. I don't make it my business to go around trying to get former students fired. I would not wish to get anybody fired in this economy. Yet I would like to conduct my business without fear of profanity being flung in my direction. Even my business of procuring a free soda every now and then.

There comes a time to put away childish things. And that time is when you're on the clock at your job in a convenience store.

Still Fighting To Clear Her Name

Yesterday, The Pony discovered over a dozen eggs in the chicken house.

"But Mrs. Hillbilly Mom," you might say, "isn't that where you would EXPECT to find eggs from your multitude of chickens?"

Yes. And no. The chicken pen has an open gate policy. That's because some of our birds are too stupid to fly. This way, they can come and go as they please. They roam the grounds all day, feeding on delicious bugs and seeds and sometimes dogfood right out of the dog dishes on the porch. At night, some sleep in the chicken house. The fliers roost in the cedar trees. Every now and then, a broody hen will set up shop inside the chicken house, and remain for three weeks until her babies emerge from their shell prisons. During that time, other hens will lay in there in hopes of her hatching their eggs.

Over the last month or so, The Pony has only been finding one egg a day. Maybe two. Farmer H has accused my little dog Juno of eating his hen fruit. I object. Exhibit One is Tank the Beagle found inside the chicken house every evening when The Pony embarks on his collection odyssey. Sure, Juno has beautiful, shiny, silky black fur. The kind the internet purports results from the dog eating a raw egg a couple times per week. But Juno is not in the chicken house. She won't fit. Nor will our other egg-eater, Ann, the black German Shepherd, who is probably part Lab. I have seen Ann carry eggs in her mouth, then bite them and eat them when she thinks nobody is watching. But she does not lay on the floor of the chicken house 24/7 like Tank.

Farmer H has been on vacation from work this week. He mentioned that he was going to fix the chicken house so that Tank would not be able to get in. Something tells me that Farmer H is not going to make the connection between the multitude of eggs and the absence of the Beagle.

Not even if it showed up as a plot on Law and Order: Special Chickens Unit.